TAs teach 3 sections of this course, each with 30 students. We arrive to class 15 minutes early to prep for the day, work with students for nearly 2 hours, and clean the lab for the next TA after class. We hold 2 office hours that, if we’re doing our job right, are frequently used by students. 

We attend a weekly lab meeting to prepare the lab, and ourselves, for the next week’s activities. That equals about 6 hours and 45 minutes of in class time and 3 hours of meeting time. In order to get students to read materials before coming to class, we have a pre-‐lab assignment. Then we provide feedback on their experiment in the post-­lab.

That’s 180 assignments that need to be graded each week. If we only allotted 3 minutes for grading each item, which is not really appropriate since the experiment results usually need at least double that time to grade if learning objectives are to be met, at 3 minutes an assignment it takes 9 hours to grade, and that’s spot-­‐grading. 

Add at least another 2 hours if you accept assignments on D2L, or an hour to post grades on D2l for your students and maintain a spreadsheet for yourself. If you were keeping a count, we’re at a solid 20 hours of work. 

This is without including time for us to prepare the materials, read the information we’ve assigned them, and answer student emails. Also, students have a project that counts for a significant part of their grade, and we provide feedback and guidance throughout the semester.

I say this not because I don’t know how to stay at my half‐time appointment. My supervisor provides us with lots of tools to help us stay at our appointment level. Its hard to give only 3 minutes to a student who is engaged and interested, or to one we can see we’re losing. Its hard, at 3 minutes an assignment, to watch for instances of plagiarism, which we need to catch in an introductory class if we’re to hope students will have seriousness of purpose in higher-­level courses.

Its hard to put aside my dissertation to donate the 10 minutes a piece to review each students’ individual project methods so that they have a chance of succeeding in their final project. So we give more time. We value your undergraduates’ educations, and we donate time to MSU to provide your undergrads the education they deserve. You employ us to teach them, and we are proud of the job we do.

Part of our jobs as TAs in center for integrative studies courses is to interface with students. In ISP, I am essentially the only instructor they ever meet. Many students have put off their requirements and are taking this class in their senior year, while they deal with the stresses of graduation sometimes accompanied by severe anxiety or depression, and most others are freshmen struggling to balance their education while navigating all of the problems we experience in our first year away from our comfort zone, our families, and with more independence.

I have taught ISP on and off since Fall 2011, and every semester I have students who come up to me asking for extensions on assignments, opportunities for make‐ups, or other accommodations because their emotional and mental health needs are in conflict with their coursework, and ISP is always the course to suffer. Some of these students are aware of their problems and look to me to help them find resources on MSU’s campus. 

Others don’t know how to ask for accommodations. I notice their grades are slipping and they aren’t participating in their group as actively and I reach out to them. I have had students struggle with the loss of a sibling, a grandparent in another country that they couldn’t afford to travel home to say goodbye to, and many other heartwrenching situations. 

Students coming to me with issues of race discrimination on campus that they are having trouble dealing with emotionally. 

At the bargaining table, MSUs Office of Employee Relations told us that helping students with emotional ‘first aid’ was not a part of our job as TAs. I strongly disagree. I could not be a good educator if I were not able to answer their questions and engage in these conversations with them. I donate my time to MSU to navigate the resources here, to help my students find the help they need. I need help doing that, so that I can teach your undergrads.

I and my ISP colleagues have also had to deal with severe allergic reactions requiring the use of an epipen, a seizure in class, a robbery, a diabetic emergency, and several other minor issues like deep cuts caused by broken glassware and other common lab and field ailments. 

I know of a friend at another institution who had to use an AED. I am not equipped to deal with these medical emergencies. For these reasons TAs should have the opportunity to get first aid training. Again, the Office of Emplyee Relations says its not part of our jobs.

Because of the State of our Department presentation, I know that one of the major reasons my department was preserved was because of the amount of money we brought to the university by teaching ISP.

We teach over 400 students each semester, we are fiscally valuable enough to save a department, we provide many of the core liberal arts educational goals, and we do so effectively by donating our time to your undergraduates.

There are many things you could do to help us help MSU undergrads, like reducing the TA courseload so that the 20 hours we spend on our students are quality hours, and provide us with free mental health first aid and first responder training so we know how to approach the situations that we’re not ‘paid to address’ but still spend valuable hours addressing everyday in classrooms across MSU.

Trish Smrecak is a teaching assistant in the Center for Integrative Studies and a graduate student in the Geology Department.